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West Point in Literature 



BY 

GENERAL WILLIAM H. CARTER 

UNITED STATES ARMY 




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West Point in Literature 



GENERAL WILLIAM H. CARTER 

UNITED STATES ARMY 



%eprinted from Journal of the Military Service Institution 






LORD BALTIMORE PRESS 

BALTIMORE, MD., U.S.A. 

1909 



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09 



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WEST POINT IN LITERATURE. 

By Brigadikr-General WILLIAM H. CAETER, U. S. Army. 

"The moon looks down on Old Cro' Nest; 
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast, 
And seems his huge gray form to throw 
In a silver cone on the wave below." 



EST POINT, seated in the ro- 
mantic Highlands, in the 
shadow of Cro' Nest, and 
guarding, as it were, the very 
throat of the majestic Hudson 
where it breaks through the 
mountain barriers on its way 
to the sea, has been the scene 
of many historic incidents which have left an impress 
upon all who have lingered there. There is an old 
West Point tradition that the talented young author, 
Joseph Rodman Drake, conceived the quaint idea of 
'' The Culprit Fay," as a result of a bantering wager 
at The Mess, that no tale of love without the human 
element could be made of interest. Whether this 
tradition be wholly true, the fact remains that yomig 
Drake received his inspiration under the shadow of 
Cro' Nest, and his West Point elfins, goblins, sprites 
and fairies mil live as long as American verse re- 
ceives the honor that is its due. 

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The literary instinct is inborn, but environment, 
intellectual associations and well-directed study serve 
to broaden and perfect the gift which makes so much 
for the world's entertainment and happiness. Under 
a rigorous analytical system of education, intended 
to develop logical methods of reasoning out essential 
facts and of clearly presenting proper conclusions, a 
simple and direct style of expression naturally re- 
sults. When to this general training is added a per- 
sonal quality, derived from a literary temperament, 
a happy combination ensues, the results of which may 
be observed in a long array of historical and purely 
literary work of a high type from the pens of men 
who have imbibed the inspiration of West Point. 
) This influence of tradition and environment has been 
/ beautifully expressed by Schaff in " The Spirit of 
Old West Point": 

" Very soon the monuments, the captured guns and dreaming colors — 
which, at the outset, are mere interesting, historic relics — beckon to 
him; he feels that they have something to say. Before he leaves West 
Point they have given him their message, revealing from time to time 
to his vision that field from which lifts the radiant mist called glory." 

Too much science may have had a chilling eifect or 
have entirely drowned out the literary instinct in 
some; it is certain that it has curtailed the army 
careers of many. And yet, amongst these latter are 
men whom the nation loves to honor with garlands of 
success. Whistler did not acquire all his knowledge 
of art during his few years at West Point, nor did he 
necessarily learn there " The Gentle Art of Making 
Enemies," but it is certain that he looked back with 
interest and pleasure on the years he spent in prepar- 

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ing for a military career, cut short, as lie believed, by 
a silly answer to a scientific question. Edgar Allan 
Poe, after serving in the ranks as a soldier and hav- 
ing received an honorable discharge, entered West 
Point and remained for a brief career, resembling a 
p^^-otechnic display rather than the life of a sober- 
minded student. He then returned to civil life and to 
the field of literature, where he won success through 
the magnetic quality of his ^A^'itings which abomid in 
pathos, weird fancy and dramatic narrative. 

Every great crisis of modern history develops its 
multitude of A\Titers, but their productions seldom 
find any permanent abiding place in the hearts of 
book-lovers. Here and there a quality which is not to 
be measured by any fixed rules of literary criticism 
seals the reputation of an author and differentiates 
his work from that of his contemporaries. This ap- 
plies not only to fiction and essays, but also to his- 
torical writings. 

Every war — yes, every campaign and important 
expedition — has found a capable chronicler, and 
these writings form no small part of the original 
sources from which truthful history will be evolved. 
" Scenes and Adventures in the Army in 1859," by 
Philip St. George Cooke, who took a prominent part 
in the Utah Expedition as well as the Kansas troubles, 
will have equal value with his '' Conquest of New 
Mexico and California." James Donaldson's " Ser- 
geant Atkins," a tale of the Florida War, will be 
valuable as an historical side-light. John Bourke's 
description of Indians, their folklore, religious rites 

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and superstitions will ever be a treasure-house to 
students of the vanishing race, particularly as re- 
gards their old order of life. " My Life on the 
Plains," by Custer, will find appreciative readers so 
long as lives the melancholy story of that sad June day 
on the Little Big Horn when, woefully outniunbered, 
his troopers stood in a circle of fire until not a soul was 
left to tell the story of how brave men died. Richard 
Dodge wrote of The Plains from personal knowledge. 
The life described by him in a notable book, " Our 
Wild Indians," comes within the span of the present 
generation, yet is as completely gone as that expe- 
rienced by his prototype, Bonneville, another West 
Pointer, whose '' Adventures in the Far West " were 
told in a fascinating volume edited by Washington 
Irving. These memoirs and recitals of personal ex- 
periences by flood and field constitute the natural 
medium for those not content with mere formal offi- 
cial narratives, too often lost in the dusty archives of 
a paper-ridden government. 

The personal memoirs of West Pointers constitute 
a vast storehouse of history of exploration, Indian 
lore, frontier settlement and military campaigns. 
The history of the advance of civilization from the 
Tide Water Colonies is inextricably intertwined with 
that of the Regular Army which cleared the pathway 
and held back the savage during the swaddling 
clothes age of upbuilding of numerous and now pros- 
perous commonwealths. 

In the field of essays, historical monographs and 
history itself, West Point has played a distinguished 



part. The bibliography of writings of her alunmi 
fills a large and important portion of her records of 
accomplishment. Her essayists have covered a wide, 
field of effort in the pages of dignified reviews and 
literary magazines of acknowledged repute, as Avell 
as in scientific and special publications of recognized 
value in the professional world. The influence of 
West Point has been signally demonstrated in the 
writings of her graduates, who, while trained to be 
men of action rather than scholars and students, have 
left large accumulations of historical and literary 
work of marked vitality and visefulness. 

Even to name all those who have come under the 
spell of West Point and later earned approval as 
authors would require a volume. Writers of acknowl- 
edged repute in the field of history, such as William 
Tecumseh Sherman, Randolph B. Marcy, George W. 
Cullum, Edward D. Mansfield, Roswell S. Ripley, 
James H. Wilson, Henry Coppee, Emory Upton, 
Oliver O. Howard, Horace Porter, and a host of 
other West Pointers, are too well known to require 
extended mention of their individual merits. And 
of the later generation there follow many of excep- 
tional literary and historical ability, eminently quali- 
fied to carry forward the work so auspiciously begun 
by those who have gone before. 

Amongst American humorous writers none have 
excelled that brilliant scholar and erratic genius, 
Capt. George H. Derby, who, under the name of John 
Phoenix, gave to the world The Squibob Papers and 

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his inimitable volume of Phoenixiana, which has re- 
cently been reprinted by the Caxton Club. 

Among recent novelists Richard H. Savage, Arthur 
Sherburne Hardy and Charles King have found a 
generous recognition, each in his own peculiar field. 
Savage, a brilliant soldier, mathematician and all- 
around scholar, joined the army upon graduation, but 
found that his restless soul had heard the call of other 
lands; and although following his professional bent, 
he was soon sowing the seeds that ripened later into 
a remarkable harvest of books, probably the best 
known of his novels being ^' My Official Wife." 

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, quitting the army to 
accept the chair of mathematics of Dartmouth Col- 
lege, found time to give to the public such classic 
works as " Francesca di Rimini," " But Yet a 
Woman," " The Wind of Destiny," '^ Passe Rose " 
and other novels. He received public recognition by 
appointment to the Diplomatic Corps as Minister to 
Persia, and later to Greece and Roimiania, Switzer- 
land, and finally to Spain, where he represented his 
country with the dignity and prestige generously ac- 
corded to scholarly worth. 

Charles King, born soldier, of martial spirit and 
with much professional pride, has the inborn gift of 
the story-teller, and has pictured the service he knows 
and loves so well, in a long series of volumes. It is a 
far cry from " The Colonel's Daughter " to the 
" Rock of Chickamauga, " but whether the scenes are 
laid under the burning sun of Arizona, in the Indian 
villages of the Great Plains, amid the bitter strife of 

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Civil War, or in the tropical jungles of the Orient, 
King writes with knowledge born of personal expe- 
rience. 

One of the most accomplished scholars and writers 
of to-day is no less a personage than the Dean of West 
Point, Charles W. Larned. His numerous essays are 
distinguished for excellence of diction. It became the 
duty of this official to prepare the historical sketch of 
the Battle Monument erected at West Point by con- 
tributions from the regulars serving in the field dur- 
ing the Civil War. To the thousands who annually 
gaze upon that graceful shaft, a selection from the 
sketch may prove interesting : 

" The polished monolith of granite that faces on the terreplein of West 
Point, the gateway of the Hudson Highlands, guarding like a giant sen- 
tinel the memory of two thousand heroes of the mighty struggle for 
principle, which freed a race and welded a nation, was dedicated to its 
sacred function on a day of mingled cloud mists and sunbursts — fit type 
of the dark years of battle and of the glory of the victory which it 
commemorates. 

" This is a monument to the Regular Army of the United States, 
erected by brothers to brothers, not in an invidious or vaunting spirit, 
but with a just pride in the great work wrought by the soul that went 
forth from this army into the leaderless masses of noble men who left 
the walks of peace for the hard field of fight. The Regular Army is 
justified in this pride, and rightly glories in this rock-hewn witness to 
a work well and faithfully done, not only in the War of the Rebellion, 
but by these same men in exile, hardships and peril on remote frontiers 
amidst savage foes — the advance-guard of our civilization, the protec- 
tors of a land which they did not possess, and the promoters of a great 
industrial development whose fruit was not theirs. This memorial was 
not built by a grateful country, but by voluntary offerings from the 
hard-won pay of comrades in the field within hearing of the roar of 
battle, and in sight of the dead, whose memory it preserves." 

Here and there a fleeting poem appears, but West 
Point can lay no claim to a B}T.'on or a Longfellow. 

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There is a poem entitled " West Point," written by 
one of those who, in the fateful days of the Civil War, 
when men's hearts and minds were torn with distress 
to determine the right, went forth to follow the path 
of duty as he saw it. Aside from its pathetic refer- 
ence to those who had followed the Lost Cause, there 
is a rhythm and sentiment about the poem which 
entitles it to endure. 'Tis the old, old story of a col- 
lege love which, in part, runs thus : 

" It was commencement eve, and the ball-room belle 
In her dazzling beauty was mine that night, 
As the music dreamily rose and fell. 

And the waltzers whirled in a blaze of light. 

In the splendor there of her queenly smile. 
Through her two bright eyes, I could see the glow 

Of cathedral windows, as up the aisle 
We marched to a music's ebb and flow. 

A short flirtation — that's all, you know, 

Some faded flowers, a silken tress. 
The letters I burned up long ago 

When I heard from her last in the Wilderness. 

I suppose could she see I am maimed and old, 
She would soften the scorn that was turned to hate 

When I chose the bars of gray and gold. 
And followed the South to its bitter fate. 

But here's to the lad of the Union blue, 
And here's to the boy of the Southern gray. 

And I would that the Northern Star but knew 
How the Southern Cross is borne to-day." 

The simplicity of language which so generally 
characterizes the writings of West Pointers may be 
attributed to their martial training. Those who 
really possess the literary instinct, however, are not 
hampered in expression, except in official writings, 

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where brevity is encouraged. When a man of recog- 
nized personal merit has a message for the public, it 
is not the less appreciated because written in terse, 
forceful English. Possibly there is not a carefully 
rounded, high-sounding " literary " paragraph in 
General Grant's Memoirs, yet Americans would not, 
for the world, have had his book written in any other 
style, for they had grown familiar with his simple 
and direct method of expression. West Point has no 
apology to offer for its most successful general, when 
he enters the field of literature, if he may be judged 
by a paragraph taken at random from his memoirs : 

" I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, 
nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and 
prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such his- 
tory will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability 
of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he 
hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause 
which in the end prevailed will, I doubt not, come to be acknowledged 
by every citizen of the land, in time." 

The literature and recorded history of a nation, 
perpetuating heroic ideals and lofty purposes, will 
endure when the triumphal arches of all time have 
crumbled to dust and mingled with the ashes of by- 
gone centuries. With every ripple of the beautiful 
Hudson, as it flows silently by West Point, fitting 
monmnent to Washington's patriotism and sagacity, 
there goes a message to that tomb at Riverside that 
" All's Well." The victories of peace, while less re- 
nowned than those of war, are of far-reaching con- 
sequences to the happiness and prosperity of a peo- 
ple. In the shadow of the sacred memories of those 

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who have gone before, the rising generation press 
eagerly forward as standard bearers of the honorable 
name and fame of their predecessors. 

" Here, where resistlessly the river runs 

Between majestic mountains to the sea. 

The patriots' watchfires burned; their constancy 
Won freedom as an heritage for their sons. 
To keep that freedom pure, inviolate, 

Here are the nation's children schooled in arts 

Of peace, in disciplines of war; their hearts 
Made resolute, their wills subordinate, 

To do their utmost duty at the call 

Of this, their country, whatso'er befall. 
Broadcast upon our history's ample page 

The records of their valiant deeds are strown. 

Proudly their alma mater claims her own. 
May she have sons like these from age to age! " — Holden. 



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